Can't Feel My Soul
by PainapplePrincess
Summary: When old friends go to war with each other, sometimes it takes an outside party to bring things back into balance. Luckily, as a gray mage, balance is what Adam's best at. AU ::READ WARNINGS INSIDE::
1. Prologue: The Beginning

Can't Feel My Soul

Prologue: The Beginning

* * *

Kyle sighed as he locked up the store behind himself. There were a lot of perks to being a manager, he reminded himself. Perks that definitely made up for having to close up by himself at two in the morning. Definitely.

Clutching his messenger bag tight, Kyle slipped his keys out, little bottle of holy water dangling where he could reach it easily, and let his gaze drift around the parking lot. It was murky, but there were enough lights around the lot that he felt somewhat-safe walking to his car. He knew that, statistically, he was a lot safer than any of the women he worked with, but that was no excuse not to be cautious. He'd even been sure to park under one of the lamps, his little clunker of a Suzuki ringed in flickering light.

Not, he reminded himself fatalistically as he power-walked towards the beat-up old machine, that a little circle of light would help him any if someone decided to attack him here - the little convenience store was situated on a lonely corner of a rarely-traveled intersection. The few other buildings in the area were either closed for the night or up for lease, and his store's owner hadn't felt security cameras in the parking lot were a useful expense.

There wasn't a lot of trouble in Angel Grove, to be honest. There was definitely a higher percentage of non-humans, to the point that the population was nearly fifty-fifty, but neither the AGPD nor the Peacekeepers had a lot of unregistered non-humans to deal with, and the registered ones hardly ever stepped out of line. Still, it's never a bad idea to be careful, said a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like the old lady in apartment 38B. And besides, the non-humans weren't the only ones that could be dangerous, not by a long shot.

Almost on cue, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Heart in his throat, Kyle whirled around, very nearly plowing into a man about his age who'd been paying more attention to his cell phone than his surroundings.

"Oh," the stranger said, blinking at Kyle in bewilderment, as though he'd sprung out of the ground right in his path. "Uh, sorry." Shrugging, the plastic bag of groceries the man carried swung gently back and forth.

"No," Kyle replied, frowning. "Sorry, my fault."

The man offered him a distracted grin, eyes flicking back to his cell phone, and suddenly Kyle recognized him - one in a string of faces he'd rung up that evening while his staff was busy stocking shelves, who'd seemed more interested in arguing with someone over his phone than taking his receipt for the ridiculous amount of Skittles he'd purchased.

The man still seemed incredibly preoccupied, somehow managing to walk across the lot and out of sight around the corner without tripping despite still being glued to his phone, and it wasn't until Kyle'd turned to continue to his car that he thought to wonder why the man was still hanging around.

_Must have forgotten something_, he told himself, shivering.

Kyle pretended he didn't give a little sigh of relief when he reached his car safely, but the feeling was brief as his bag slipped from his shoulder and scattered his belongings across the asphalt.

"Oh, great," he groaned, heart suddenly hammering in his chest. He wasn't a fan of horror or slasher films, but he knew enough to know that this was generally the part where someone died horribly. Usually a blonde woman, of course, but now would be the time the universe chose to honor principles of gender equality. Not that Kyle was against gender equality. He was very for it, actually, especially the part where no person of any gender got murdered in a parking lot, ever.

_Shut up_, he told herself, sighing as he knelt to gather up his things. _You've never had a problem in this parking lot. This area's never been known for any kind of crime. The only other person within blocks of you has wandered off..._

As he reached for his cell phone, a pair of black trainers entered his field of vision, nearly catching his fingers. Startled, he looked up.

The young man from before was frowning down at Kyle thoughtfully, bag of junk food slung over one shoulder, his free hand tucked into his pocket.

"Need a hand?" he asked, concerned.

"I..." Kyle blinked again, fingers closing around his phone as he stood, a rush of cold flooding his body. The stranger's eyes never left his, and he noticed that the concerned expression looked strangely wooden. "I...no, I'm..."

They were nice eyes, actually. Brown, with long lashes, strangely Bambi-like for such a masculine face. And staring into Kyle's still...like...

_Oh_, he thought as conscious thought slipped away, as those eyes seemed swirl into inky black pools, _so this is what it's like_.

That was his last thought as the black of the man's eyes bled out over his skin, drawing Kyle inexorably into his power, until he saw nothing but shadow, felt nothing but a tug at the side of his neck, and then...

Letting the body of the convenience store clerk fall to the pavement unceremoniously, the man licked his lips and kicked at the fallen cell phone. He watched it skitter away, rolling his eyes as his own phone began to buzz. With a put-upon sigh, he pulled it out and swiped his thumb across the screen.

"Yeah? No, I remembered the coffee, Kat. Yep..." Snorting, he picked up his bag of groceries. "I am _not_ always late. No, I didn't get pulled over again. Just stopped for a drink," he said with a slight shrug, turning to walk away. "Nah, it's fine. I made sure. He didn't even scream."

As he faded away into the night once more, leaving behind the cooling body of his victim, Tommy Oliver laughed.

* * *

**:::WARNING: Fic contains slash, femslash, het, and poly pairings; sex without love and unrequited love; major character death; angst and dark humor; some descriptions of violence, blood and possible mild gore (very mild, I promise).**

**Though there isn't any Tommy-bashing per say, he is ****_not_**** depicted as one of the good guys here...as you can probably tell.**

**May also include brief flashbacks and crude or suggestive language.**

**If you have an issue with any of these things, I urge you to c****_lick far, far away from this fic._**** If you don't, and you message me angrily about the inclusion of any of these things, I will not respond.:::**

* * *

A/N: Okay, so, the warnings might be a little scary, but I promise they're mostly for the benefit of those who can't handle a little creepy AU. I meant it when I said this was gonna be horror - vampires, ghosts, demons, pancake abuse...it's all there.

This is mostly gonna be Adam-centric, with multiple and ever-changing pairings that aren't really the focus of the story, and boy, howdy, whatta story! It's looking to be 20 chapters long, tho that could change, and if ya stick around I promise there'll be more humor (dark and otherwise), intrigue, and supernatural whosits and whatsits for your reading pleasure...or something like that.

Please review - I live on reviews!

**Coming Up - Chapter One: Roaming**

"You're an odd duck, aren't you, Adam Park?" Tommy said slowly, letting his glamour slip and his eyes bleed black, dark veins writhing out from them.

Adam met those eyes without flinching. "You have _no idea_."


	2. Chapter One: Roaming

Can't Feel My Soul

Chapter One: Roaming

* * *

Angel Grove.

The brochures all said it was a beautiful place to live. Adam didn't pay much attention as the scenery rolled by - it was mostly the typical SoCal landscape, all palm trees and tanned teenagers on summer break, illuminated by an almost oppressively bright sunlight. He was near the beach, he could feel the tug and push of the tide in his throat, drawing out a sigh.

It looked about as peaceful as any other city in California, humans and non-humans mingling without fear. Something, Adam knew from experience, that wasn't as common as the media would like the general population to believe. The government tried to paint the U.S. as a country free of persecution or hatred, and it was illustrated in Angel Grove in the same way a makeup artist would paint a false face on an actor.

_Looks great in post_, Adam thought derisively as he rolled to a stop at a red light, _but it's just makeup and lighting and CGI. All effects, no authenticity._

In fact, that was about ninety percent of the reason he had locked up his healing clinic and driven here, to Angel Grove, home of the leaky ley lines and the densest non-human population relative to the human population in the U.S.. The first instance being the direct cause of the latter, of course.

Rocky and Aisha had moved to Angel Grove from Stone Canyon just after high school. They hadn't told him they were going, or where - they hadn't really been speaking by that point - but he'd received a couple of postcards from 'Sha in the last few years, postmarked from this city. He was happy for them, really. Rocky and Aisha had always been more involved in the non-human community than he'd been (since he wasn't non-human so much as a human-spinoff), and it made sense for them to be here. Word in their circles was you couldn't go a block in this town without tripping over a changeling.

He certainly didn't begrudge them that, the need to be surrounded by their peers. Not to mention breaking away from their families, to move into the Light and away from the Dark they grew up in. It was just...

They chose the _Light_.

Adam knew that there was no such thing as neutrality. Neutrality was always in favor of the oppressors, the evil, whatever. He wasn't about neutrality, he was about _balance_, something he'd thought his two oldest and best friends understood. They had seen how he'd grown up, the pawn in a game of chess between Light and Dark, they'd _known._..but still, they chose the Light, as though there were only two sides in this particular struggle.

Rolling down his window, Adam breathed deeply, releasing his death-grip on the steering wheel. He was working himself up over this, yet again, when it was many years past and done with. He'd moved on. Or, he'd thought he had.

That was the trouble with friends like Rocky and Aisha. While Adam had always thought of himself as...well, balanced, Rocky and Aisha were both fiercely passionate people. Fighters, through and through. And, yes, Adam could certainly hold his own, physically and mentally, but he wasn't driven to fight the way his friends were. He sought to change the world as much as anyone who had seen the bitter battles fought in secret, between human and non-human, between Light and Dark, between species and races. He'd been witness to the same lines drawn around city blocks, territories marked out like trenches being dug on a battlefield. He didn't like it any more than his friends had. He did what he could to change things, to make the world a better and safer place, for _everyone_.

Rocky and Aisha had made the same mistake a lot of folks did. They'd assumed that their only choice, the only clear choice for anyone who felt passionately about _change_ and _progress,_ was one of the two extremes. The Light, which sought to protect humanity by ruling non-humanity by any means necessary, and the Dark, which sought to protect non-humanity by ruling humanity by any means necessary. Adam didn't see much of a difference between the two, except the Light was mostly made up of beings whose natural auras and abilities were based in Light Magic, and the Dark was the same for beings of Dark Magic tendencies.

Rocky being one of the notable exceptions, Adam amended, turning into the parking lot of a nondescript motel. Darkness had run in his family, but the outgoing, compassionate young man hadn't let that stop him for a second.

_Well_, Adam thought, dragging his duffel out of the backseat and slinging it over his shoulder, _whatever war they've waded into this time, at least they'll have me at the sidelines, ready to stitch them back together. Again._

Adam had made a firm decision before he'd left Stone Canyon. He wasn't going to get sucked into this thing. It wasn't political, it wasn't a social issue, this wasn't a struggle between Light and Dark on the whole. It was two people Adam didn't even know going head-to-head after their long friendship went sour, and Adam's own friends had gotten involved because...well, he was sure they had their reasons. Whatever those were. While he had a very bad feeling about the whole thing, and as heartless as it sounded, Adam had more important things to worry about than a friendship gone dramatically off the rails.

The lady at the check-in counter was human, he noted absently as she scanned his credit card, but she wore several amulets of varying effectiveness. Anti-vampire, anti-ghoul, anti-werewolf, even, despite the fact that werewolves neither depended on humans as a food source nor had a predilection for savaging anyone, human or otherwise. Their bite didn't even turn humans, unlike vampires. The inherent Dark nature of werewolves, not to mention long history of negative press, did a lot to bias humans against them, but it was still odd to see anyone wearing wolfsbane these days. Of all the non-humans that had gone public, they were probably one of the more accepted.

The clerk didn't pay him much mind until she got a look at his ID - he'd expected that. "Mage?" she asked, voice pitched a little higher than normal, though he couldn't tell if it was surprise or fear.

"Yes, ma'am," he said as politely as he could manage. Then, hating himself a little for it, he added, "Gray mage."

"Oh. Well, we don't get a lot of those in here," she said, busying herself with the key-card machine and no longer meeting his eyes. "We have a few Lights and Darks living in town, though. They're...interesting folks," she finished awkwardly.

"I'm sure," Adam replied, taking his key-card from her, brushing his fingers over hers and wishing it didn't please him so much when she flinched. He wasn't that kind of person, he really wasn't. It had been a long drive, and he was already on edge from all the conflicting auras in the general vicinity. Adding in whatever weird anti-mage prejudices this motel employee had didn't help.

He couldn't help feeling her out a little, though. He didn't do it often, not without permission, but she'd annoyed him. Besides, if he was going to be staying here, getting a feel for the staff would be a valuable endeavor. The results weren't too interesting, to be honest. She was grays and rusty reds, felt achy and tired in his joints, and her aura skittered a bit against his own. Nervous, then, and wary, and there was a sort of bitterness that came from past experience. Probably not anti-mage, then, so much as anti-someone-who-hurt-her-who-happened-to-be-a-mage.

Not much better, Adam admitted to himself.

"Unless they ingest it, wolfsbane just gives werewolves the sniffles," he said briefly, tucking the key-card into his pocket and smiling tightly when she blinked at him, finally making eye contact. "Not bad ones, usually. Kind of like being mildly allergic to a certain perfume."

"Oh." She fiddled with the little silver ball hung on the heavily-laden chain. "What works with werewolves, then?"

"Understanding," he answered simply, leaving her staring at his back uncomprehendingly.

The room was small, wood-paneling on the walls, mold in the grout, and holes in the duvet. It didn't smell awful, there were no creepy-crawlies in sight, and there was a small fridge and a microwave, though, so it would definitely do. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to be here long - just long enough to knock his old friends' heads together and drag them out of their mess before it sucked them under. Then he could go back to Stone Canyon, back to his clinic, and wait for Rocky and/or Aisha to go haring off on another extremist mission and pry him away from his life again.

Tossing his duffel on the bed, he dug into the front pocket and pulled out Aisha's last postcard, dated two weeks ago.

**Adam,**

**Everything's going okay here. Rocky & I are still staying with our Light mage friend. Wish you were here - things are getting tense and we could use your help. I know you don't like picking sides, but please think about it. Starting to think we should have stayed in S.C.**

**Miss you,**

**Sha**

Pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers, Adam flicked the postcard onto the table. Aisha admitting that maybe she might have possibly made a mistake was never a good sign. None of the three of them were known for being wishy-washy or indecisive. Stubborn was the word, really. They were a stubborn trio. Adam fervently hoped it was just her actually missing him, or her naturally protective nature making her worry about Rocky, arguably the more zealous of the pair.

His contemplation was interrupted by the rumble of his stomach. Right - he hadn't eaten yet, and it was already early afternoon. Grabbing his keys and wallet, he pocketed the room key and was promptly held up in the hallway by an elderly couple who either existed in a dimension slightly out of phase with Adam's, and therefore couldn't see him and were unaware that he could not get past as they meandered around the corridors at point-zero-zero-two miles per hour, or they were incredibly rude and self-absorbed and didn't care that there was a hungry young mage who was unfortunately too polite to simply shove them aside.

"Did you hear about the body they found outside the Gulp-N-Gas?"

"Oh, no - another one?"

"Goddamn roamers...haven't seen so much as a flash of fang our whole vacation, then they come through here like they own the place."

Roamers, Adam thought, suddenly not as interested in getting past them as he was in hearing more. Roamers were vampires that didn't take up permanent residence, usually because they weren't registered, or didn't like to abide by the no-murdering-people laws. He knew that the overwhelming majority of vampire attacks were perpetrated by roamers, and while they weren't as numerous as they had been in the past, there were enough of them to cause the Peacekeepers a lot of grief.

"Roamers," the old woman said bitingly. "It's so convenient, isn't it, that vampires have a little sub-culture they can blame, like they're not all the same."

"You think it's a registered vampire?" the man asked, clearly surprised at the idea that a vampire who more or less conformed to humanity's rules would be responsible when there were so many non-conformists who looked better for the crime.

"They're all murderers, Carl," the woman sneered. "Some of them just hide it better. _Parasites_."

Adam fought the urge to speak up, if only because the elevator had arrived, and he didn't want to get trapped in a tiny box with a couple who would probably not take kindly to him informing them that not all vampires were murderers, any more than all humans were murderers. Besides which, humans killed over being cheated on - they could hardly take any kind of moral high ground. In point of fact, human-perpetrated crimes outnumbered non-human-perpetrated crimes easily, even accounting for the number of innocent non-humans charged with crimes they didn't commit. It was easier to point the finger at non-humans, especially when the most noticeable of them looked so...well, non-human. As history could attest, the more one deviated from whatever society was endorsing as the "norm," the more _different_ one was, the worse they came off in the deal.

When the couple got onto the elevator, Adam turned and took the stairs instead. Upon entering the lobby, though, he overheard the couple talking to the check-in lady, who did her best to ignore him entirely.

"Oh, no, there's only one registered vampire in town. We get a lot of roamers and tourists, but he's the only one living here full-time," she was saying, fingers fluttering over the silver cross at her throat. "Tommy Oliver. He's Dark-aligned, sure, but he's always adhered to the law."

"Mark my words," the old woman said, "if he hasn't killed yet, he will. They always do."

"Tommy?" The clerk snorted. "Not likely. Worst he ever does is drive recklessly. Always goes to the banks for his meals, never hurt a single soul. He's lived here all his life - he was turned here, even. He's not like other vampires."

Adam left before he could hear the old woman's reply. Sliding into his car, he breathed deeply through his nose and stared at the steering wheel so hard his eyes nearly crossed.

"You're not getting involved, Adam," he reminded himself. "This isn't your war."

Even as he said it, he was pulling out his phone to look up any local bars that catered to vampires - if Tommy Oliver was the only one living here full-time, there probably wouldn't be many, just for the tourists...

"Fool's Gold Pub," Adam murmured, eyes scanning the route.

He pulled out onto the road, wishing he could kick himself for this and knowing he couldn't ignore it. Not with a dead body. Adam was about balance, after all. The death of innocents definitely unbalanced things.

As much as he hated agreeing with that prejudiced old bat, he couldn't deny that he knew that name. Tommy. Tommy, who was a vampire living in Angel Grove. Aisha had mentioned a Tommy - the ex of the Light mage friend she and Rocky were staying with. The motel clerk could believe what she liked, but in this instance, Adam had a very strong feeling she was wrong. Aisha might be biased against the Dark, but she'd said this Tommy was more dangerous than he let on, and she was not the kind of person to make false accusations. If she believed Tommy was dangerous, then she had a very good reason.

Especially since it took a lot to make someone dangerous to Aisha.

Fool's Gold Pub was a standard sort of building, nestled in a strip of trendy boutiques and antique shops in the downtown area. It either wasn't busy in late afternoon or it wasn't busy in the middle of the week, but either way, there was ample parking at the curb and not much of a crowd to pick Tommy out of.

He was seated in a corner booth, half in shadow and swirling a wineglass full of red liquid like some kind of horror film cliché, eyes fixed on an MMA match on the television across the room. His motions stilled briefly when Adam butted his aura up against the vampire's, leaving no question as to who he was there to see. Tommy sat forward, still watching the match, and gestured to the seat across from him with his glass. Rolling his eyes at the posturing, Adam slid into the booth, still pushing at Tommy's aura with an efficient, self-assured attitude.

Sharply contrasting the man's appearance - well-styled, somewhat trendy with the spiky, gelled hair and the functional-yet-fashionable slacks, wire-rimmed glasses that served to make his sharp, masculine features seem less intimidating - Tommy's aura was in shades of black, with very little in the way of color mixed in. A slip of green or red here, something that might've once been white there. Self-assured, passionate, and probably a very gentle and guileless person prior to his turn, everything was swamped with Darkness so thick it might as well have been visible.

Not liking the soot-y burn of it in his throat, Adam pulled himself back and folded his hands on the table between them, eyes following the dark fluid in the glass as it sloshed.

"Wine," Tommy offered, tilting the glass with a grin. "Not my usual choice, to be honest, but it fits the look, you know?"

Adam didn't acknowledge the attempt at levity. "And your usual choice is...?"

"Vodka," the vampire admitted. "You?"

"I don't drink."

Tommy snorted. "Why am I not surprised? Mages." He smirked at Adam's startled blink. "Yeah, I can smell the magic on you, man. I know exactly what you are."

It was Adam's turn to snort. "I doubt that. Look, I'm not here to get into it with you. My name is Adam Park, and I just wanted to let you know that I might not be aligned with Light or Dark, but while I'm in town I'm not gonna tolerate any law-breaking. If it turns out you've had anything to do with this murder - _any_ murder - I will put a stop to it."

His smirk widening, Tommy leaned forward and looked Adam in the eye. Adam let him.

"You don't think I had anything to do with any law-breaking," Tommy said softly, words and gaze laced with a sort of ripple of power. "In fact, you kinda like me."

Adam blinked slowly. Then, not breaking eye contact, he raised one eyebrow. "Sorry, were you saying something ridiculous about me not believing something I definitely believe?"

Sitting back, the vampire's mouth thinned, and he set down his glass with a careful motion. "You're an odd duck, aren't you, Adam Park?" Tommy said slowly, letting his glamour slip and his eyes bleed black, dark veins writhing out from them.

Adam met those eyes without flinching. "You have _no idea_." Standing to leave, he added, "If I catch you compelling the cops out of ticketing you, I'll be very annoyed."

"God forbid," Tommy murmured, inky eyes still trained on Adam. "I'll be seeing you around, I guess?"

"No," Adam replied. "Not if you know what's good for you. I don't like violence, Tommy, but don't make the mistake of underestimating me. You don't wanna be on my bad side."

"Duly noted."

Adam didn't look back as he exited the bar.

_'Sha, Rocky...what the hell have you gotten me into this time?_

As he got back in the car and tried to remember where that McDonald's he'd passed was, Adam considered calling them for a moment before disregarding the idea. They had their allegiances, and he was still set on not getting any more involved than he had to be. He was only going to keep an eye on his friends and keep them from getting hurt.

Nothing else.

* * *

A/N: Okaaayyy, so, we've covered a goodly chunk of backstory, Adam's reasons for being there, and the fact that Tommy's a shady motherfucker.

**Coming Up - Chapter Two: Crossed Paths**

The cat wound its way around his ankles, nearly tripping him up. "Nice," he grumbled. "You've really got the normal-stray-cat act down, huh?"

The feline sat down, golden eyes fixed on him with what could only be described as derision.

"Look," he said quickly, spooning a bit of cantaloupe out of the cup, "that mage? Pretty sure he's _that_ Adam. Either way, _he_ will wanna know."

Dipping her head in a nod, the cat butted her head against Tommy's shin until he gave her the customary ear scritches in exchange for her services. She watched as he wandered off, probably to annoy someone else, before turning and diving into the alleyway.


	3. Chapter Two: Crossed Paths

Can't Feel My Soul

Chapter Two: Crossed Paths

* * *

Pancakes, Adam decided, were a brilliant invention.

They went so well with bacon and syrup, for one thing. They were usually pretty cheap. And, best of all, they stacked so neatly.

As he gazed down at his little tower of breakfast, syrup dripping down the sides, he sighed happily. Something about a perfectly-even stack of pancakes was just ridiculously appealing. Like when all your toilet paper rolls made a neat little pyramid in the cabinet, or the number of Keurig cups you had was exactly the number you needed to fill all the little spots in the K-cup holder. Or when it first snowed and your walkway didn't have any footprints on it - just a neat, even, unblemished lane of white fluff.

He sighed again. Sometimes, one needed a perfectly-even stack of pancakes to fortify one against the sloppy pile of pancakes that would be the rest of one's day.

Setting about crumbling his bacon on top, Adam was so tuned into his Pancake Place of Peace that he almost didn't feel the very unwelcome presence sidling into the Denny's like a storm front moving in.

_Not gonna let him ruin my pancakes,_ Adam decided firmly. _Not today._

Tommy slid into the booth across from him, glamour in place and gaze coldly calculating in a way that contrasted sharply with his friendly grin. "Good morning," he offered, sounding very much like he believed that any morning that involved his presence must naturally be good.

Instead of correcting him, Adam picked up his fork, turned it tines-down, and stabbed his pancake stack with vicious intent.

"Not a morning person, then," Tommy observed, grin widening.

Adam sighed again, not so happily this time. While it wasn't a good idea to overgeneralize, Adam had yet to meet a vampire that didn't love to annoy, anger, terrorize, and otherwise make life difficult for everyone else. Something, he imagined, to do with raising the heart rate, which was undoubtedly thrilling for vampires in some way. A natural instinct.

Tommy snagged the last intact piece of bacon from Adam's plate and devoured it, despite the fact that solid food tended to be tasteless and rough on a vampire's stomach, and Adam decided that Tommy was just an asshole.

"I'm surprised you are. Shouldn't you be bursting into flames about now?" Adam asked snidely.

"You know," his unwanted guest remarked blandly, licking his fingertips and ignoring Adam's jibe entirely, "what with all the amusing attempts to intimidate me into behaving, I didn't get a chance to ask what you were doing in town."

Adam shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth, staring resolutely out the window. His eyes absently sought the empty space where Tommy's reflection would have been and pondered the not-flaming thing. Not all vampires did spontaneously combust in the sun - they got sunburned more quickly than other beings, sure, but not a lot of smoking and flaming, on the whole. The ones that did have sunlight issues were usually described fairly crassly as 'sizzlers' or, Adam once heard, 'McGriddles'. It was generally accepted that the older a vampire got, the more resistance they built up to sunlight, and while there were plenty of charms and specially-formulated sunscreens to keep the vamp population from turning into undead lobsters, it wasn't nearly the issue old media liked to portray it as. Still, there was a reason you didn't see a lot of vampire-heavy populations in Arizona.

Tommy wasn't especially pale for a vampire, though he had that ashen sort of look that Adam guessed came with not having any kind of notable circulation. He didn't smell of sunscreen, or seem to have any charms about his person, and he definitely wasn't old enough to have built up an immunity, so Adam could only guess he was more naturally resistant to the sun.

_He was born and raised in SoCal,_ Adam reminded himself, half-watching Tommy start to create some kind of house of cards out of the sugar packets. _Of course he tans instead of burning._

"You see," Tommy said idly, propping up more sugar-packet walls, "I'm thinking you're not just here for the ambiance. I mean, Angel Grove attracts a lot of non-humans - oh, sorry, was that offensive?" His eyes flicked up to regard Adam with a smirk.

Adam shrugged. "No, sorry, was it supposed to be?"

Humming thoughtfully, Tommy went back to his architectural masterpiece. "As I was saying, Angel Grove attracts a lot of non-humans, but you don't strike me as a joiner, you know? And you're definitely not a tourist. You're here for a reason, aren't you?"

_Mmm,_ Adam thought. _Pancakes. Delicious, perfectly-stacked, not-at-all-ruined-by-Tommy-Oliver pancakes. Yummy._

"Why are you here," Tommy asked, apparently abandoning subtlety (such as it was) for the direct approach. It seemed to suit him better, anyway. "What is it you want, Adam Park?"

"To finish my pancakes alone," Adam grunted. "How about you? What do you want? Rivers of blood, hell on earth, a red Ferrari?"

"Hmm...well, Ferrari aside..." Tommy shrugged, balancing another packet on his growing house. "I don't really _want_ anything. I'm just trying to enjoy the ride." He winked at Adam in a distinctly flirty way, which Adam ignored in favor of his pancakes.

"Gee," he muttered as he cut into the stack a bit more violently than breakfast really called for, "you mean you're not trying to conquer the world, or destroy it, or whatever nefarious plot is all the rage with villains these days?"

The grin Tommy graced him with was equal parts amused and condescending, and Adam hacked at his meal even more forcefully in response.

"Nah," the vampire replied. "Not too interested in destroying the world. Since, you know...I live here."

Adam didn't say that sounded like an excellent reason to just junk it all and start over to him, but it was a close thing.

He'd spent a lot of time - both on the way to Angel Grove, and last night as he'd tried to drift off to the sounds of Die Hard: With a Vengeance being played at earsplitting levels behind one wall and a squeaky mattress being given a hell of a workout behind another - thinking about how best to approach his little mission. The best plan he could come up with was to remain unobtrusive and as unnoticed as possible until Rocky or Aisha did something inadvisable and needed him to sort things out. Not that they genuinely _needed_ him. Adam was well aware of the fact that they were adults, able to make their own decisions, and capable of dealing with whatever fallout resulted from those decisions. They were his friends, though, no matter how long it had been since they'd had an actual conversation, and he would be there to sweep up after them and give them his best I-told-you-so face, whether they liked it or not.

Until that happened, though, he'd figured the best way to keep out of trouble was to not go looking for it. Of course, he'd botched that pretty badly by confronting Tommy, but he wasn't the kind of guy who could stand by and let anyone go around eating innocent townspeople without doing something about it. And unfortunately, it was looking like Tommy was one of those people who couldn't just leave things alone - curious, stubborn, and unfortunately somewhat observant. He knew very well that Adam was there to stick his nose where even Adam himself had to admit it probably didn't belong, and the vampire undoubtedly had no qualms about biting said nose off and spitting it in Adam's face if it came to it.

As that image blossomed in his mind's eye, Adam pushed his plate away. Not like he could really enjoy his pancakes, anyway, with Tommy's soot-and-death aura sparking bitter on his tongue. He opted to stare at Tommy's towering abomination of a sugar-packet building instead.

"You're not gonna answer me about the whole 'why you're here' thing, are you?" Bored with building, Tommy folded his arms on the table and leaned forward to regard Adam curiously through the gaps in the structure. "Here's another one, then - how'd you know I'd be at Fool's Gold?"

Twirling his fork absently, Adam did what his grandmother had called 'sending out feelers' - drawing out a thin strand of power like a thread - and poked it in and out of the gaps, weaving it through the creation with care. Tommy appeared not to notice, still waiting for an answer to that.

Adam didn't really have one. He supposed Tommy probably didn't know about mages and 'feelings', the sort of vague precognitive ability most mages had that allowed them to tell, for instance, when something very bad was about to happen, or when something very good was about to happen, or when the possibly-homicidal vampiric sociopath they're looking for was hanging out in a bar. It wasn't a true psychic ability, there were no visions, no ability to tell anyone's fortune, and most mages just used it to tell them when to duck or if it was a good day to play the lottery. Adam tended to use his to find people who needed his assistance, or to stop fights before they happened. It had pulsed in the back of his brain warningly when he'd gone to find Tommy, but like an idiot he'd ignored it.

He really, really wished he hadn't ignored it. He was starting to think Tommy Oliver was going to be the death of him.

Or he was going to be the death of Tommy Oliver, he amended silently, setting his fork down carefully. Either/or.

"Adam," Tommy said, and the mage met his gaze resolutely. Pushing power into his eyes and his voice, Tommy continued, "how did you know where to find me? What are you doing in Angel Grove? Why are you here?"

Compulsion. Another attempt to violate Adam's free will and privacy, a fruitless attempt, and suddenly Adam was _done_ with Tommy. Irritation bubbled over into genuine anger, and with a sort of mental flick, he scattered the sugar packets over the table, and over Tommy. Then, before common sense could remind him that a Denny's was not the place for a supernatural showdown, he gathered his power and _pushed,_ shoving the table until Tommy was pinned between it and the back of his booth.

"I'm here," he said darkly, throwing several crumpled bills onto the table and grabbing his jacket, "to teach a few people _manners_."

He cast an apologetic glance at the wait staff who would have to clean up the mess and stormed out.

As the door swung shut behind Adam, Tommy brushed a few packets off his shoulder, his other hand pushing the table back into place easily. "No," he said genially as a waitress scurried over to sweep up the sugar packets, "it's okay, Mina, I've got this."

She blushed off his warm smile as he started to gather up the packets and stack them neatly back in their container.

Adam Park. A strange one, to be sure. Not especially aggressive (except, apparently, when his breakfast was interrupted), and certainly not unpleasant to look at. For once, though, that wasn't what interested Tommy most.

Swiping the fruit cup and spoon as Mina went to gather up the dishes, Tommy tucked a few extra dollars tip under the sugar basket and left.

It was sunny out, as always, but Tommy was too preoccupied to bother complaining about it, even to himself. He had places to go, trouble to cause, and a cup of fresh fruit to pretend to enjoy, mostly because he knew that if the snarky young mage could see him, his head would probably explode from sheer aggravation.

"Oops," Tommy said lightly to no one. "I stole a cup and spoon from a Denny's, Adam. A heinous criminal act. Oh, no."

When his new friend didn't materialize and smite him for his trespasses, Tommy popped a tasteless grape into his mouth and grinned. Time to go find a kitty cat.

He found her sitting on a low wall, staring across the street at a seafood restaurant that smelled absolutely vile to Tommy's vampire senses. He wasn't sure why that was - most food barely had a smell at all to him now - but had eventually chalked it up to the fact that he'd hated seafood even when he was human. His little demon friend here adored it, though, and refused to listen to him when he tried to convince her that it was too much of a stereotype for a feline demon to love fish.

Leaning back against the wall, Tommy proffered his fruit cup to her. She rolled her eyes in a very non-kitty way and hopped down, wandering off without giving him so much as a backward glance.

Tommy heaved a put-upon sigh. "Cats." Shoving off the wall, he followed.

"So, I met someone today," he began, ignoring the odd looks the tourists gave him. Like they'd never seen a vampire eating a stolen fruit cup and talking to a demon cat before.

The cat somehow managed to mewl in a condescending way, and Tommy grinned.

"Yeah, nice guy. Real cute, nice ass, hell of a temper hiding under his inner-peace-and-balance Gray mage exterior. And," Tommy added, "a hell of a lot more powerful than he'd like me to think."

The mewl came out more like a growl this time, and Tommy shrugged.

"Don't know. Couldn't compel him at all. If I had to guess, though, I'd say he's got a vested interest in what's going on between _them._" Winding her way around his ankles, the cat nearly tripped him up. "Nice," he grumbled. "You've really got the normal-stray-cat act down, huh?"

The feline sat down, golden eyes fixed on him with what could only be described as derision.

"Look," he said quickly, spooning a bit of cantaloupe out of the cup, "that mage? Pretty sure he's _that_ Adam. Either way, _he_ will wanna know."

Dipping her head in a nod, the cat butted her head against Tommy's shin until he gave her the customary ear scritches in exchange for her services. She watched as he wandered off, probably to annoy someone else, before turning and diving into the alleyway.

Kat was never sure why Tommy couldn't just deliver his own messages. Sometimes he treated her like a damned carrier pigeon - she was a powerful and respected demon, for crying out loud! But then, that was Tommy all over. Intelligent, beautiful, and charming, but ultimately selfish and remorseless in the way he used people. She'd heard that he'd been different before his change - still charming, but also sweet and protective of the people he cared about. Now, she wasn't sure he actually cared about anyone.

As she took a weaving path through the city that would have looked haphazard to anyone else but made perfect sense to her (reinforce this perimeter, check to see that no other demons have gotten into this alley, let everyone see her, be a presence), she thought back on their first meeting. He'd been a new vampire then, still struggling with his thirst, and for a while she'd imagined he'd done it because he didn't want to hurt anyone. She knew better now, of course. It wasn't concern for innocent lives that had prompted his quest for iron control over his instincts. It was simply the thrill of control itself. Not at all the sort of berserker type that tore throats out left and right, Tommy was more interested in efficiency. If he didn't have to resort to violence, he wasn't going to. It caused more trouble than it was worth to go around draining people without a plan, without anonymity, leaving all sorts of clues behind to bring Peacekeepers right to your door. Tommy might not feel any remorse for the lives he took, but he'd feel remorse for causing himself a hassle, that was for sure.

It wasn't that he was completely heartless. Tommy did something akin to caring about people, but only in fits and starts, and only in a selfish sort of way. He cared about how people benefited him, and during the times they didn't benefit him (they disagreed with him, they weren't around, they were trying to sleep, Tommy, god damn it, _go away_), he stopped caring. Or, really, stopped thinking about them entirely, as though they'd ceased to exist. She'd witnessed it more than once, and it was fascinating when it happened to other people. It was brutal when it happened to her, at least the first few times, when she hadn't been expecting it. When she'd thought she was special. Eventually she'd come to understand that it was just how Tommy was, and that he wasn't about to change.

There was some debate among the academic community about the nature of souls and their place in the supernatural community. A lot of lore said that vampires had no souls - hence no reflections - but lore also said vampires couldn't cross running water, so there you go. The lore on just about any non-human was ninety percent fiction brought to you by generations of hysterical townspeople and ten percent warped fact. But it posed an interesting question - did vampires have souls? Tommy wasn't the first vampire Kat had met, and while they came in a range of personalities, they all seemed to share his inability to genuinely care about anyone but themselves, and perhaps a mate. This lack of empathy left them seeming incredibly sociopathic, and while some hid it better than others, were able to fake empathy brilliantly, it was nearly impossible to hide one's true feelings from a demon.

Was empathy tied to the presence of a soul? How did being turned affect a human's soul at all? Did all vampires truly lack empathy, or was it only that the ones that exhibited sociopathic tendencies publicly were the ones caught out? The debate raged on.

Kat turned her mind away from the question of Tommy and his soul. Her last stop before home was too enjoyable to bother with such depressing things, as it had nothing to do with establishing or defending her territory - it was purely selfish, which made it something special. Kat didn't do a lot of things just for herself these days, and she wanted to savor it.

Squirming through the slats of a picket fence that surrounded her favorite house in Angel Grove, she pushed her way through the glaring of normal cats all clamoring for the attention of a young faerie woman.

"Hey, you," the woman said kindly as the demon butted up against her hand. "Didn't see you yesterday, where've you been?"

If she'd been able to, Kat would have blushed. She meowed instead, flopping over and resting her head on her favorite person's foot.

She'd stumbled across the faerie by accident, almost - during a tense meeting between the man Kat's allegiance lied with and his friend-turned-enemy, to whom the faerie was loyal. While their respective leaders sniped and argued, Kat had taken to staring at the faerie, watching the light scatter iridescent colors across her wings, patterns that played along her skin showing boldly to Kat's demon eyes. She wondered what the faerie looked like to humans - could they see her wings like this? Did she appear dull and average? It was hard for Kat to imagine.

In spite of the fact that they were enemies, she'd gone looking for the enchanting young woman the first moment she'd had to herself, and had been beyond delighted to find her sitting on the stoop of her home, giving food and water to the neighborhood cats. Peeking between the fence slats, Kat had watched her stroke their matted fur without a hint of a grimace, listened to her talk to them and laugh when they batted at her fingers playfully. The sunlight made her glitter in a way the dim light of the meeting place hadn't, like a prism casting rainbows everywhere.

Kat had fallen in love.

And her faerie had noticed that she hadn't been by the day before! That was a good sign, right? Well, if the faerie hadn't noticed Kat was not...well, a _cat_, it wouldn't have been very remarkable, but there was no way she could miss the traces of Kat's demonic aura, filtered and diluted though it was in this form. She knew Kat was not like the other felines, and she'd noticed her! Kat purred, rubbing against her faerie's shoe affectionately.

She listened as the faerie talked about her werewolf friend (Kat even managed to not hiss - the werewolf stank like a garbage bin to her, and he was too loud and rough for her liking), about the local animal shelter, about the bees she kept and what they were up to. Every so often, the faerie would lean down and give a scritch to Kat's ears, gentler and more affectionate than Tommy could manage, and Kat rewarded her with more purring, wriggling until she was belly-up, tail flopping lazily once or twice.

The feel of a new aura had her on her feet too soon, the scent of _werewolf_ setting the fur along her spine on end. Ugh. She scattered with the other cats, none of whom were interested in making friends with what was essentially a big dog that walked on two feet. As she slipped back through the fence, though, Kat sent one last, longing look at her faerie, who was standing up now and laughing at the young wolf, who looked bewildered by their sudden retreat.

Such a mutt, Kat thought unkindly as she made for home.

The cul-de-sac was mostly abandoned, save for the house in the middle, facing the connecting street. While everything else around it was in shambles - siding falling off, roofs caving in, weeds choking the yards - the house in the middle looked as though it was brand new. The light blue of the house was as bright as if it had just been painted, the white accents clean and crisp. There weren't many lights on this early in the day, but the shutters were open, looking in on a neat, warmly-decorated home. It looked fairly welcoming, if one didn't take into account the decrepitness surrounding it.

Kat hadn't been there when the last neighbor had moved out, and she'd never really wondered why no one else had moved in, but if she'd had to hazard a guess, she'd say it was probably the stigma of living in a neighborhood with a houseful of Darks. Rolling her eyes as she pushed through the cat flap, she grew out of her fur and back into the form with opposable thumbs.

"Morons," she muttered, combing her fingers through her hair and heading straight for the study. Knocking softly, she slipped through the door.

The study was as neat and up-to-date as the rest of the house. The bay window overlooked a lush backyard, allowing sunlight to illuminate the bookshelves lining the walls, the long table in the center of the room that, at this moment, only held a chessboard in the very middle, game half-played. In one corner, there was a sturdy desk that held a computer, the best of the best (with several modifications made by the owner), and that was where he sat, back to the door, immersed in something on the moniter that looked like a mix of circuitry and sigils.

"That mage is here in town. The one her dog mentioned last time."

The man didn't look up from what he was doing for a moment, but then her words seemed to reach through the distraction, and he turned, eyebrows knit together in thought. His eyes slipped momentarily to the chessboard, and he nodded. "Thank you, Kat. When Tanya gets home, could you tell her I'd like to see her?"

"Of course." Nodding to him with a warm smile, she sidled back out and shut the door.

Sitting back in his chair, Billy looked again at the chessboard.

So. Adam Park was in Angel Grove.

_It's time._

* * *

A/N - adsklfjhsdgjkdl okay this took longer than I expected to finish, and there's a lot more here than I'd planned. I'm sorry to anyone for whom the lengthy digressions into the mythology of this 'verse is too distracting or off-putting. I like a good bit of world-building in fiction, fan or otherwise, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Man, that Tommy's a jackass, huh? I hate that I like him so much. And now we have several new players in town! And we still have eight more characters to introduce - it's gonna be a long journey, but I hope it'll be worth it!

**Coming Up - Chapter Three: Hunt**

The flowers seemed to shiver, buds opening and closing, vines twisting and unfurling, and the young man stopped, staring.

"Sorry," Adam muttered. "Reflex."

He seemed to shake himself out of his bewilderment. "No, I'm not..." He trailed off with a sigh. "Just never seen magic used like that."

"You've seen a lot of magic?"

Pinning him with a serious look that seemed almost accusatory, he shrugs. "Yeah. Once or twice."

And suddenly understanding broke through the clouds of distraction, and he got it - Jason was a Hunter.


End file.
